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would not dare to if he were present. Now what will happen when you and I have a falling out? You
know I'm going to be discussing your weaknesses with someone else. That's what you and I did
behind our supervisor's back. You know my nature. I'll sweet-talk you to your face and bad-mouth
you behind your back. You've seen me do it.
That's the essence of duplicity. Does that build a reserve of trust in my account with you.
On the other hand, suppose you were to start criticizing our supervisor and I basically told you I
agree with the content of some of the criticism and suggest that the two of us go directly to him and
make an effective presentation of how things might be improved. Then what would you know I
would do if someone were to criticize you to me behind your back?
For another example, suppose in my effort to build a relationship with you, I told you something
someone else had shared with me in confidence. "I really shouldn't tell you this," I might say, "but
since you're my friend..." Would my betraying another person build my trust account with you? Or
would you wonder if the things you had told me in confidence were being shared with others?
THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart
Such duplicity might appear to be making a deposit with the person you're with, but it is actually a
withdrawal because you communicate your own lack of integrity. You may get the golden egg of
temporary pleasure from putting someone down or sharing privileged information, but you're
strangling the goose, weakening the relationship that provides enduring pleasure in association.
Integrity in an interdependent reality is simply this: you treat everyone by the same set of principles.
As you do, people will come to trust you. They may not at first appreciate the honest confrontational
experiences such integrity might generate. Confrontation takes considerable courage, and many
people would prefer to take the course of least resistance, belittling and criticizing, betraying
confidences, or participating in gossip about others behind their backs. But in the long run, people
will trust and respect you if you are honest and open and kind with them. You care enough to
confront. And to be trusted, it is said, is greater than to be loved. In the long run, I am convinced, to
be trusted will be also mean to be loved.
When my son Joshua was quite young, he would frequently ask me a soul-searching question.
Whenever I overreacted to someone else or was the least bit impatient or unkind, he was so vulnerable
and so honest and our relationship was so good that he would simply look me in the eye and say, "Dad,
do you love me?" If he thought I was breaking a basic principle of life toward someone else, he
wondered if I wouldn't break it with him.
As a teacher, as well as a parent, I have found that the key to the ninety-nine is the one -- particularly
the one that is testing the patience and the good humor of the many. It is the love and the discipline of
the one student, the one child, that communicates love for the others. It's how you treat the one that
reveals how you regard the ninety-nine, because everyone is ultimately a one.
Integrity also means avoiding any communication that is deceptive, full of guile, or beneath the
dignity of people. "A lie is any communication with intent to deceive," according to one definition of
the word. Whether we communicate with words or behavior, if we have integrity, our intent cannot
be to deceive.
Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal
When we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need
to do it sincerely. Great deposits come in the sincere words
"I was wrong."
"That was unkind of me."
"I showed you no respect."
"I gave you no dignity, and I'm deeply sorry."
"I embarrassed you in front of your friends and I had no call to do that. Even though I wanted to
make a point, I never should have done it. I apologize."
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of
pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and
values in order to genuinely apologize.
People with little internal security can't do it. It makes them too vulnerable. They feel it makes
them appear soft and weak, and they fear that others will take advantage of their weakness. Their
security is based on the opinions of other people, and they worry about what others might think. In
addition, they usually feel justified in what they did. They rationalize their own wrong in the name of
the other person's wrong, and if they apologize at all, it's superficial.
"If you're going to bow, bow low," say Eastern wisdom. "Pay the uttermost farthing," says the
Christian ethic. To be a deposit, an apology must be sincere. And it must be perceived as sincere.
Leo Roskin taught, "It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.
THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart
I was in my office at home one afternoon writing, of all things, on the subject of patience. I could
hear the boys running up and down the hall making loud banging noises, and I could feel my own
patience beginning to wane.
Suddenly, my son David started pounding on the bathroom door, yelling at the top of his lungs, "Let
me in! Let me in!"
I rushed out of the office and spoke to him with great intensity. "David, do you have any idea how
disturbing that is to me? Do you know how hard it is to try to concentrate and write creatively? Now
you go into your room and stay in there until you can behave yourself." So in he went, dejected, and
shut the door.
As I turned around, I became aware of another problem. The boys had been playing tackle football
in the four-foot-wide hallway, and one of them had been elbowed in the mouth. He was lying there in
the hall, bleeding from the mouth. David, I discovered, had gone to the bathroom to get a wet towel
for him. But his sister, Maria, who was taking a shower, wouldn't open the door.
When I realized that I had completely misinterpreted the situation and had overreacted, I
immediately went in to apologize to David.
As I opened the door, the first thing he said to me was, "I won't forgive you."
"Well, why not, honey?" I replied. "Honestly, I didn't realize you were trying to help your brother.
Why won't you forgive me?"
"Because you did the same thing last week," he replied. In other words, he was saying. "Dad,
you're overdrawn, and you're not going to talk your way out of a problem you behaved yourself into."
Sincere apologies make deposits; repeated apologies interpreted as insincere make withdrawals.
And the quality of the relationship reflects it.
It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive
mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily
forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of
the first mistake.
The Laws of Love and the Laws of Life
When we make deposits of unconditional love, when we live the primary laws of love, we
encourage others to live the primary laws of life. In other words, when we truly love others without
condition, without strings, we help them feel secure and safe and validated and affirmed in their
essential worth, identity, and integrity. Their natural growth process is encouraged. We make it
easier for them to live the laws of life -- cooperation, contribution, self-discipline, integrity -- and to
discover and live true to the highest and best within them. We give them the freedom to act on their
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